Sherrill Carta's tale is one of the good-news survivor stories from this tragedy. But separated from her husband in smoke and flame at the height of the Kinglake fire, she was not to know that.

Instead, Mrs Carta walked half a kilometre in her burning bare feet to safety, mourning her husband as she went.

On the mend: Sherrill Carta and her husband Bill thought the worst when separated trying to escape the fires at Kinglake. They were admitted to The Alfred hospital within a minute of each other. Photo: Rebecca Hallas

"I thought I'd lost him," the 56-year-old nurse said yesterday from her Alfred Hospital bed, her husband Bill at her side. "I was just really numb, I was totally shocked and I couldn't get past the thought that he'd gone. My dogs were gone and my house was gone.

"A little bit of me was saying, 'I don't know that this is all true, maybe there is a glimmer of hope' but I couldn't really think past that."

After fleeing her burning house she had backed her car into a culvert, then lost her shoes trying to climb over a burning tree trunk. There was nothing to it but walk as the bushfire raged around her.

"I couldn't really see much, I just kept my eyes on the white line in the middle of the road," she said. "There were flames all up the side of the road and houses burning and I never saw anybody else. I remember feeling really alone.

"It was like a snowstorm of red embers, I felt like I was playing hopscotch at one stage to miss them all."

After half a kilometre and an unknown amount of time, a four-wheel-drive picked her up and took her to safety.

Meanwhile, her husband Bill, 52, was wondering if his wife was dead. He had been riding his motorbike beside her car, but a falling tree separated them. The heat became so intense that he had to run to another car, with a couple and two children.

"We propped for about 10 minutes and the fire seemed to have passed," he said. "After that we went back to Sherrill's car and realised that (she) and the dogs were no longer in there.

"(It) was a moment of hope. My biggest fear was finding her in the car but unwell. When I found her and the dogs were out of the car I realised she must have been well enough to get out of the car. Then my worries were what happened to her after she left."

But it was not until seven hours later that they arrived at the Alfred, barely a minute apart.

"We didn't realise that both of us were still breathing until we got to the hospital here," Bill said.

"I had arrived by helicopter, Sherrill had arrived by ambulance. I was sitting in the A&E area downstairs and I called out: 'Sherrill!' It was a fantastic moment."

Mrs Carta agrees it was a "great" moment.

"I grabbed him by his big toe because it looked like the only piece that wasn't burned," she said.

Both patients are now stable. Mr Carta had superficial burns to his face and partial thickness burns to his arms and hands. He will have skin grafts today.

Mrs Carta had deep burns to the soles of her feet.

Because of the nature of that skin, she must wait for it to heal without grafting. In a few weeks' time she should be able to walk.